Opera Software has filed a complaint against Microsoft's practice of tying Internet Explorer to Windows. The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has offered its backing of Opera's complaint.

The European Commission Directorate General for Competition followed up just a few days ago on Opera's concern by issuing yet another statement of objections to Microsoft's practice. The FSFE welcomes the initiative and offers the commission assistance in their investigation.

"Web browsers are becoming a critical platform for home and business computing," according to Shane Coughlan, legal coordinator at the FSFE. "The market previously failed to prevent unfair distortion of the desktop environment and we cannot allow such practices to be repeated."

A letter from FSFS president Georg Greve to European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes clearly states, "Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software,... we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market." He goes on to say, "Precisely because [products such as Firefox and Konquerer] abide by industry recognized Open Standards and cannot implement the Microsoft undisclosed and non-compliant 'dialects' of these standards, they often appear 'impaired' when compared with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which establishes itself as the closed, de facto standard due to [its] dominant position."

This column looks into projects and current affairs in the world of free software from the perspective of the GNU Project and the FSF. In this issue, we take a look behind the drapes at the FSFE Annual General Meeting.

Microsoft had to report a 30% slump in sales for the last quarter. Their report to the U.S. SEC includes a rundown of their risk and competition factors. Among their concerns are Linux and open source untertakings, but also their own partners HP and Intel.

The Dutch software dealer HW Trading has proffered a complaint concerning Microsoft's marketing practices to the European Trade Commission. The reason: Microsoft has for years been selling its products at a higher price in Europe than it does in America.

This column looks into projects and current affairs in the world of free software from the perspective of the GNU Project and the FSF. In this issue, I’lll focus on Comspari and the EU decision on software patents.